Cauterize
by audi katia
Summary: And then she is lost to the world, staring at her hands, desperately grasping at the vestiges of a memory. But the memory burns away before she can reach it. .:.post-series.:.


_**Notes**: Because I love Azula and her insanity fascinates me. This is my tribute to her. I know it's been written before, but I like to think that I was able to give an original spin to it._

_**Disclaimer**: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender._

* * *

She's unwell.

At least, that's what they tell her. She doesn't believe them.

She can't remember how she got here. A tiny cell, narrow bed with gray blankets, books to keep her occupied, and guards at her door at all hours.

It's maddening though, because she doesn't think she's sick. She doesn't cough or sneeze or anything else. She can walk and talk and move normally. She's covered in bandages, but they are not permanent.

The only thing wrong with her is she forgets things sometimes. Like her name and where she is and what happened to her.

The only thing she knows is that she doesn't deserve to be there. And that the gray blankets should be red. But she can't understand why she knows that.

* * *

A boy visits.

He looks older than a boy, every visual cue tells her to call him a man. But something in her mind, a voice she can't recognize, convinces her that he is nothing but a boy.

He tells her he knows her, that she used to know him. She resents him immediately, wondering why he should know something she is kept from.

Torn, she wants to knock him down and then pick him back up again, all to repeat the process once he's back on two feet.

She wonders where he got his scar, and when she asks, he grows shocked, his good eye widening.

He sounds shaken, saying she really has changed.

Changed from what? She wants to ask him, but doesn't say a word.

* * *

The bandages bother her.

She watches unconcernedly as they fall to the floor, white strips that seem to glow in the comparative darkness of her cell. She tears her eyes away, looking at the newly exposed skin.

Bruises. Cuts still partially opened, some healed harshly red.

She presses her fingers into the heart of her bruises, watching as they change color under the pressure. From yellow to brown to purple once more.

No hiss of pain escapes her lips, she won't allow it.

_They shouldn't be there._

_I know_, she whispers back to no one she can see.

* * *

She doesn't mind her healer.

She doesn't need his healing, but she enjoys his conversation and stories. The healer speaks quietly, as to not be overheard by anyone. She fails to understand his secrecy, but accepts it.

He's there to help her, he says. He's there to remind her of her old life, the life of a princess who was beloved by her father.

He talks about her father's accomplishments in hushed, reverent tones as they sit in the corner furthest from the guards. She listens greedily, waiting for the parts of the stories when she inevitably arrives in a blaze of glory.

He tells her of the crown she used to wear and she is hit with the memory of the crown. She can sense its weight in her hands, can imagine the stark gold against the black of her hair, can taste the metal on the tip of her tongue. She remembers the extended feel of it. The power, the insatiability, the _need_.

She opens eyes that she did not realize were shut. The strains of a memory fade away from her eyelids, lost to her as she struggles to hold them closer to her.

Her vision clears and she sees the healer, smirking.

_See? You'll be back to yourself in no time._

She's not sure if the healer said that or if she just imagined it.

* * *

She hates water.

She doesn't understand, but she hates it. Loathes it. Throws rages that leave her body so exhausted, all she can do is sleep. And when she sleeps, there is pain and fear and she's drowningfallingsuffocating.

The smell, the taste, the texture. She abhors the unmistakable sound of liquid slipping and splashing to the bottom of her cup. She screeches, smashes the stone cups. Why does it hurt her like this?

_You'll die without it._

_But it's a betrayal!_ she screams alone in her cell, answering a phantom no one else can sense.

Someone, an older man she doesn't know, gives the order that she receive tea instead. And only then does she accept liquid, drinking tea so strong that she can't taste the water at all.

* * *

The boy is back again.

He sits, looking uncomfortable. He keeps trying to talk, to tell her things, his voice guarded and cautious.

_He pities you._

It hurts her ears, but she sees the truth of it in his eyes. She glares, smoldering, as he prompts her to answer his questions, to respond to him. She won't give him the satisfaction. Something compels her to reveal nothing to him.

The boy withstands her silence for a moment more before standing to leave.

He reaches out to touch her, as though to brush her hair or pat her arm. She lurches back, eyes glaring, she wants him to burnburnburn. As though flames flicker on either side of her face, she is suffocated.

But then the air thins and there is no fire, no scent of burnt flesh. All she is left with is mounting confusion and a concerned expression etched into the boy's face.

His hand draws away, like a child's hand jerks from boiling water. He's still standing to leave and she wishes he just would go already. She doesn't want him there and she tells him as much.

He only responds with, _I love you._

_He's lying._

She didn't need the voice to tell her that. She already knew.

* * *

She's listless.

Exercise is important, they tell her. She follows them as they lead her to a small, padded room.

Run. Jump, they advise.

It bores her. She wants a challenge. Why run when there is no destination? Why jump if she can't stay in the air, only to fall back to the ground?

Instead she stretches, twists, turns. She moves with muscle memory, not knowing from one second to the next how her body will shape itself. Her arms spin around her and it's beautiful. _She's_ beautiful.

It's not a dance because the sounds that play in her mind are unlike any music she has ever heard. She hears the echoes of crashes, burning wood, screams, a hiss of steam, crackling.

If it's not a dance, what can it be? Why is it so familiar?

* * *

Sometimes she hums.

It's just so quiet in her cell, hours pass in silence before the guards switch duties or the healer comes to pay a visit. Sometimes other people visit, but they never talk much.

So she hums.

The notes come in no particular order and sometimes it sounds raspy even to her own ears. She knows no songs, can't capture a melody.

Once she has a mind to sing. She opens her mouth wide, waiting for the words to spill out from her. Maybe she had a lovely voice. Maybe the guards would applaud. But her mouth just stays open, empty, void of any sound until her breath dries out her tongue and she shuts her mouth.

Why doesn't she know songs? She knows that she must have at one point known songs. Because there are traces of memories and a tall lady with dark hair and music and that's what a song is, isn't it?

She glances around her cell. Maybe there are no songs here.

It's not the first time she feels trapped, but it's the first time it bothers her.

* * *

There's a new healer.

All at once, she understands the whispers outside her cell which confirms her thought that the sessions with her previous healer were listened in on. He's gone now. But what did he do wrong?

The new healer doesn't talk much. He doesn't say anything about her old life. He asks how she's feeling that day, what she ate, and would she like some biscuits with her dinner?

There's a haunting suspicion that lurks in her mind that makes her wonder if the healer is really helping her. If he's really doing everything within his power to change her back to the way she used to be.

* * *

One time, she laughs.

Just a giggle, a lighthearted passing of air and noise passing through her lips. It's nothing.

But the guards peer in, staring at her with their wide eyes and slack jaws. One of them puts his hand down on the weapon attached on his hip.

Suddenly she wonders if she's always been sick, even before being brought here. After all, her laughter should not cause such a reaction.

Under what context did she laugh before?

The possibilities chill her, thrill her.

The next time she laughs, it's when a guard falls down. The laughter is less open, less carefree. But the sound feels more at home in her mouth.

* * *

Her arms fascinate her.

The sun streams through her tiny window, light reflecting off the dusty hairs on her arms as she twists them around her.

Sometimes she catches herself repeating movements, not knowing exactly why she hates any feeling of clumsiness. She can't help but feel like the movements should be sharper, more precise.

She stares at the end of her hands and she thinks something belongs there. But it, whatever _it_ is, is missing. And then she is lost to the world, staring at her hands, desperately grasping at the vestiges of a memory.

But the memory burns away before she can reach it.

* * *

Time escapes her.

Her only concept of time in her cell is that boy. He tells her he comes every week and she judges her hours by the stretch of time that passes between each strained visit.

He sits, talks, stares. She ignores him until he leaves.

She wonders if he hates her.

_That's okay. You've always hated him_, the voice tells her.

One guard looks in, his expression wary. She looks at him blankly. How could he have heard her mind?

She ignores the way her lips relax, the way her tongue feels like it had just been moving.

* * *

Thunderstorms are the worst for her.

She stares out her barred window, her arms outstretched as far as they can fit between the iron bars, the rain falling down on her arms. She flinches with the feel of each one, as though they individually burn her.

But she stares at the lightning, rapt, in awe, captivated. It reminds her of something, she wants it closer to her.

She is entranced by only a handful of storms when the guards bring her to a new cell, one without windows.

Despite everything, she is lucid enough to read the fear in their faces. She just can't figure out why.

* * *

Two girls visit her.

The first one is so out of place with her smiles and her cheerful expression. She doesn't match the rest of the world here. The other girl looks more at home with dreary disposition and somber clothes. But she still doesn't fit.

_It's all wrong_. She wants to throw the words at them.

Though, what's wrong about it, she doesn't know. And suddenly her muscles tense, her joints lock, her legs cramp with the force of her frustration.

It burns-hurts-stings-_kills_ her.

The girls stare on, guilty and scared, but she pays them no mind. She hates that they can stand there, knowing everything she doesn't know, know her past, know why she's in the Godforsaken hellhole in the first place.

The one with shining eyes calls out to her, a name she barely recognizes as her own. She turns and screams, an inhuman sound that wretches from her throat and reaches every corner of the cell.

_It's their fault._

She hears it plain as day, it covers the sound of her echoing scream as she throws herself down on the ground and watches their fabric shoes disappear from her view.

She wants to cry, but doesn't.

* * *

Her anger sustains her.

She's only slept once since the girls last visited her, but she's not too tired to exercise.

Incensed with their lingering presence, she goes through her routine with renewed vigor. She uses her hatred, her shamed feelings as a weapon, bottling up the sensation inside her only to release it through her movements.

Her arm swings down and out, a perfectly executed movement with a grace that nearly awes her. And suddenly, there's sparks.

She stops, rooted to the spot and panting heavily. Sparks? She stares at her hands.

Slowly a grin crosses her face and she feels manic. This is what was missing.

* * *

She isn't mad.

She finally knows, _understands_ why she's locked away. It's because she's gifted. Because the gods loved her best. Because she could be their savior or their demise with just a flick of her wrist.

When she starts laughing, she realizes she can't stop. She laughs as the sound grates her ears and chokes her, eyes shut tighter with each racking gasp of air.

Everything goes dark.

* * *

He's there when she wakes up.

He fills her sleep-blurred vision, the red of his clothes soothing and burning her eyes at the same time. She snarls at him, feral in her behavior.

She's in a bed she does not recognize, with medical herbs hanging from the ceiling. A huge window beyond the boy shows a brilliant sun, gleaming off of every shining surface.

_The sun shines for you._

She stands, regardless of his protests. Her body aches, but she ignores it, her emotions setting her beyond pain. She holds a stance for one, two, three seconds.

He's scared, she sees. It makes her smile. But then he assumes the same position and she thinks he's mocking her.

_You should kill._

He's a fool. He doesn't understand what she is, who she is. He doesn't know her pain, the trap she's stuck in. He's the one who doesn't know, not her. She knows everything now. She knows what to do.

She raises her arms the way she did when she first produced the sparks. She can will something greater. A bigger flame. She knows it.

_Kill with lightning._

Her eyes grow wide with the prospect. Can she really do that? Can she summon the lightning?

She's confident, overwhelmed that she can do this, can handle the power she's yearned for. A familiar feeling overtakes her body, flowing through her, sizzling in her veins, setting her very soul on fire.

He doesn't move except for his mouth shaping her name. She can't hear his voice over the sound of the lightning building on her hands.

He calls for guards, but they won't get here in time.

She knows why she was gifted with fire, with lightning. It was to escape her hell, to escape that boy once and for all. She's not worthy of this life, she's beyond anything left for her here.

_Kill_.

She hears the crackling of the lightning louder than ever, the glow in her peripheral vision. She raises the palm to her temple and then—

* * *

_Please review._


End file.
